


Five Reasons Why

by stereonightss



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: First Time, Hard Lemon, M/M, Romance, mean!ogata, mild jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:16:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereonightss/pseuds/stereonightss
Summary: They probably shouldn’t. Then again, why not?





	Five Reasons Why

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, reader, ily. This is all for you.

Shortly after the fifth Hokuto cup, right as he’s moving into his own apartment, Hikaru gets a postcard from the Kiin saying they want him to do live analysis of three days of exhibition matches at a major go event.

He stands in the pressing quiet of his empty living room with the post card in his hand.

It’s a nice apartment by most standards: a bedroom, a guest room, a decent sized kitchen. Space for a couch and a goban in the living room without crowding.It’s more than enough for one—and yet, Hikaru gets the feeling in his gut that something’s missing.

Sai’s voice. The sound of his mother fretting about the house. Nostalgia bites at him, but he knows it isn’t something old that’s been left behind. No, he has the sense there’s something left to gain, something to make the house complete.

He furnished the apartment comfortably with his winnings from the Samsung Cup. He even bought some clothes, a new suit, a whole cabinet of hair products. He has his board, some video games, heaps of manga. Even food, some pictures from home. He can’t quite put his finger on the missing piece.

He looks down at the postcard. Three days of work with a day of travel on either end. It’s a long time away so soon after moving. But the part of him that drums his fingers on the walls as he walks from room to room just to break the silence jumps at the chance for time away, so he calls up the Kiin and tells them he’ll do it no problem.

It's his first time commentating on a match, and he's more than a little bit nervous. They pair him with a veteran, a crowd favorite, so that even if he crashes and burns, Ashiwara with the quick wit and the winning smile will be there to save them.

Hikaru likes Ashiwara well enough as far as he can tell—though the overly friendly manner annoys him a bit when he sees the older pro with his rival.

Ashiwara is one of the few people who can make Akira laugh aloud in public. Akira is softer, unguarded, even a little goofy when Ashiwara is around.

Hikaru tells himself it shouldn't bother him, but it does.

He spends the whole ride west to Kanazawa reminding himself that the surging instinct to challenge Ashiwara at arm wrestling or video games or, perhaps, to see who can spit the farthest is unbecoming of a professional go player with his own apartment who does his own taxes and laundry now. When the time comes, he swallows his pride and rolls his sleeves up and follows Ashiwara’s lead.

Before the playing pair even clear the opening, Ashiwara has the crowd in the palm of his hand. His timing is incredible and he’s great at cueing Hikaru with his expressive eyebrows. To Hikaru’s delight he gets to play the straight man, and they ricochet lines like a seasoned manzai duo. He finds himself totally relaxed and enjoying himself in front of a rapt crowd.

Alone in his hotel room on the first night, Hikaru thinks about how it felt to hold court. In a strange way, the sum of an auditorium’s worth of souls all focused on him feels a little bit like sitting across a board from Touya Akira.

He thinks about the way his rival’s voice changes when he steps in front of a camera or a crowd: collected but warm, drawing inward, strength in his posture and the cant of his hands. Akira’s bred-in manners preclude him from gesturing openly. So to read him, and Hikaru reads him as voraciously as he reads Jump, one has to watch the eyes and the swing of the hair to confirm what’s displayed in the subtle changes in the hands. Fists clenched, the spread flex of deep thought, a knuckle pressed to his lips (Hikaru’s favorite), tension in the little finger signifying tension in the whole, the command of the upturned, open palm, the decisive plunge into the bowl of stones, the satisfied retrieval of a captured cluster between the slender fingertips.

Hikaru could delineate every mood from the hands alone. That’s to say nothing of the eyes or the rich and varied colors of the voice. It’s a line of thinking that spirals into imagined pictures and remembered sounds, and ends in Hikaru’s fingers creeping under the elastic of his tightening boxers, feeling only half-guilty. His body has been reacting to the cool timbre of his rival’s voice long enough that by now he’s shaken off most of the shame.

The next day, he borrows some of that poise and that warm, staid authority he admires (though he leaves the lofty attitude Akira habitually pairs it with) and it’s just the right thing to balance Ashiwara’s kinetic stage persona. By the time they break for lunch the crowd seems reluctant to depart.

“You’re a natural!” Ashiwara says as they slip out of the auditorium through the stage entrance. “I’m gonna keep requesting you from now on.”

So you requested me, Hikaru thinks, and the suspicion is back, but Ashiwara defuses it again when he suggests they go get ramen.

“Should we bring Isumi? And Sakurano?” Hikaru says, nodding toward the back of the hall where the two pros are talking close and smiling.

“We shouldn’t interrupt them,” Ashiwara whispers.

“What do you mean?” Hikaru whispers back, though he’s not entirely sure why.

“They’re flirting.”

Hikaru looks back and squints.

“How do you know though?”

“Trust me. She’s doing the thing with her hair. If a girl touches her hair when she’s talking to you, she’s flirting.”

Hikaru shrugs.

“Well all right, it’s just us then.”

On the walk to the restaurant Ashiwara expounds at length, because he apparently thinks Hikaru needs the help, about how to tell when a girl is flirting. He says these things with a misty authority. Ashiwara knows because he finally found himself a girlfriend, he sealed the deal once he put all the signs together.

They end up sharing every meal together from then on, talking long and late and laughing like old friends. It’s during the last meal of the trip before they board the train again that Hikaru learns of Akira and Ashiwara’s longstanding racquetball date. He’s too amused by the idea of Akira in trainers to even be mad about the fact that he’s only now learning his rival plays a sport.

Ashiwara takes the liberty of inviting Hikaru to the next round. And that’s how he finds himself, two weeks later, filling out a guest pass at a fancy sports club, feeling out of place with bleached hair.

“If Ogata comes we can play doubles,” Ashiwara says brightly. He’s wearing red basketball shorts and a plain white t-shirt, and it calms Hikaru some. “Otherwise it’s ironman or cutthroat.”

“I don’t know how to play those,” Hikaru says. “I’ve never played racquetball before.”

“It’s okay! You’ll learn on the go.”

They’re the first ones at the outdoor court Ashiwara reserved so they warm up with a singles game. Ashiwara calls out the rules and with his natural athleticism, Hikaru picks it up easily. He forgets the fog of superiority hovering around every businessman’s son and focuses on beating Ashiwara at his own game.

They’re high-fiving over a match point when he spots his rival coming toward the court with Ogata, the both of them in pleated shorts and brightly colored polos, the costume of dynastic wealth.

Suddenly all the lightness and the tingling buzz of exertion gives way to a vice-like, chest-thumping pressure.

“Let’s kick their butts,” Ashiwara whispers. The ticklish gust of breath at his ear combined with the ridiculous phrasing breaks Hikaru out of his trance, and he’s back to grinning and spinning the racquet in his hand and feeling like, yeah, they could definitely kick some butts right now.

“Shindou!” Akira calls, soft and friendly. His energy is so relaxed that Hikaru is momentarily furious that he didn’t find out a way to spend non-go-related time with him sooner.

“Touya! Morning.”

“Us versus the children?” Ogata says, tipping his head up at Ashiwara.

“No, no. Me and Shindou versus you two,” Ashiwara says, slinging his arm around Hikaru’s shoulder.

Akira’s whole demeanor changes. His eyes sharpen, his shoulders square, the muscles in his forearm ripple as his fist tightens around the racquet.

“Very well, then,” he says, eyeing the pair of them with an icy detachment.

Akira reads the shots like he reads go, deep and accurate, and his returns are well placed. But he’s not quite as fast as Hikaru and definitely not as spatially aware. Ashiwara lobs the ball and Akira’s eyes are up and off the court. He plows into Hikaru as he winds up and it sends them both on their asses.

“Ow,” Hikaru mutters as he reaches for his rival’s outstretched hand.

“My fault,” Akira says as they pull each other up. “Are you all right?”

He dips his chin and tucks his hair behind his ear. Leaves his fingers in his now shoulder-length hair a little longer than necessary. He looks at Hikaru through his lashes, waiting for an answer. The gesture is demure and matches the pink flush of his cheeks, but stands starkly incongruous with the sheen of sweat on his lean-muscled forearms and the wide, confident placement of his feet.

“Oh,” Hikaru says, struck dumb in a moment of epiphany. “No, I’m fine.”

“That’s a fault. Your ball,” Ogata says, tossing the ball at Hikaru.

Hikaru catches it instinctively without looking, eyes locked on his rival’s. Akira licks his lips. It’s a peep, an overt tell, a move meant to test Hikaru’s reaction. He can’t help himself, his jaw drops.

Akira smirks.

The ball is back in play but Hikaru can’t bring himself to return it with the same vigor as before. He’s distracted, trying to read ahead in a game he didn’t realize he was losing until just now.

Akira pauses to gather up his glossy black hair into a ridiculous topknot—what Hikaru correctly reads as an intimidation tactic. The shorter strands in the back spill down his neck but it leaves his jutting collarbones and his small, elf-like ears dangerously exposed.

Hikaru practically gives away the next point, his thoughts are so consumed by the bead of sweat that drips slowly past his rival’s adam’s apple. He’s maybe dehydrated or getting heat stroke, because his heart is jackhammering in his ears, flipping his stomach over and back again.

It’s an oddly familiar ailment, one that’s plagued him on and off since middle school. It usually hits as fleeting, reactional: an awe muddied by visceral desire, hormonal, directionless but strong, drawn by the snap of Kaga’s fan; the excitement at the confident, confrontational stance and the annoyed frown when Kaneko snapped at him that yes, she plays go, who wants to know; an affectionate and long-suffering smile and a soft squeeze on the shoulder from the ever-patient Tsutsui; Akari on the swing in the park by their house one late summer evening, laughing loudly, gilded by the dwindling sunlight.

There are longer bouts he’d rather not remember: the spike of something dark but deep at Ko Yeong-ha’s parting words to him at the first Hokuto cup, where reproach and belonging were wrapped together in that hot but conflicted gaze, embellished by the long lashes. There’s the guilty moment he noticed the breadth and angularity of the shoulders so often disguised by layers of silk and the thigh-length fall of sleek, dark hair.

And then, in uncountable multitudes poorly suppressed, the complex and increasingly physical gravity of his singular rivalry.

Hikaru feels dizzy, cowed, beat over by the peaking sun. The air starts to feel jagged in his lungs. There must be something bigger than teenage lovesick eating him now. He feels this new affliction to the marrow of his bones.

Akira growls as he serves, and this is a new sound, one that slips into Hikaru’s ear and runs down his body to pool in the pit of his stomach. His cock lurches against the thin, slippery fabric of his track pants.

He realizes as he dashes to return the ball that he’s a goner. It’s over, I have nothing, thank you for the game.

He fumbles the shot on a match point and tries not to swoon when Akira pumps his fist. Seeing his rival openly gloat, even for a moment, is doing strange and uncomfortable things to Hikaru’s swimming head.

Ogata has a smoker’s lung and declines another game. Akira is flushed and winded and Hikaru can barely think straight, so Ashiwara calls it for all of them.

“I’ll make lunch!” he chirps as he packs away his racquet.

Ogata is the only one who drove, so he takes Ashiwara to the grocery store in his two-seater MX-5, leaving the boys to take the train.

Train rides in companionable silence, expressing the desire to speak privately across a crowded room with only their eyes, knowing ahead of time by instinct when the other will drop by unannounced, the knowledge that he will see at every crucial match and moment of their lives—these are a few things Hikaru has worn and repeated until they’re as soft and close-fitting as a glove.

He imagines losing the complex comfort of rivalry to this freshly named desire for something more. Panic seizes him so hard that he clutches at the sudden ache in his chest.

“Shindou, are you all right?”

Hikaru remembers the importance of courage in the face of adversity—Sai’s eyes, Akira’s eyes—he relegates the fear to the back of his mind.

“I’m super great. Fantastic.”

Akira frowns and looks at Hikaru intensely—that hot intensity like a drug that makes you euphoric but nauseous at the same time. He still has his hair up and it’s been three days since his last match, so he’s got the shadow of a beard running up his jawline. He looks like a samurai like that, topknot bobbing as the train chugs on, waning bloodlust and cool evaluation in the moon-bright eyes.

Hikaru groans.

“Shindou, if you don’t want to have lunch with them, it’s fine.”

Hikaru’s eyes bounce around the train car, brightened by a glint of mischief.

“Right. We could make our own lunch.”

Akira’s lips quirk up at the corners but he quickly smoothes his features into complete composure.

“If that’s what you want. I’ll text Hiro.”

Hikaru can’t help himself, he huffs an angry little breath out his nostrils. Hiro! he thinks. They’ve progressed to nicknames.

“It’s fine, let’s just go,” he says, and he can hear the petulance in his own voice.

Akira fixes him with the look again.

“What do you want, Shindou?”

Something tells Hikaru that the edge in his rival’s voice cuts past the question of what to do this afternoon, down to something deeper. Edging toward the forbidden zone, asking delicacy and care—Touya’s way. Hikaru does his best to answer in kind.

“What do I want,” he says, leaning back. “If I knew…then I would know.”

“You are the most incomprehensible person I’ve ever met,” Akira says with only slightly more affection than reproach.

“I’m a simple guy,” Hikaru says. “A big simple stupid jealous guy.”

Akira’s brows disappear up behind his bangs. Hikaru feel his ears heat up and he looks away.

When he glances at his rival again the intensity has been usurped by a look of gentle understanding. This expression intimidates Hikaru in a fresh way.

“Let’s just go to my place,” Akira says. “It’s nearer to your apartment than Hiroyuki’s, right? You can escape easier if you like.”

“Don’t need an escape route,” Hikaru replies, more forcefully than he meant to.

“If you say so,” Akira says, sliding his phone back into his pocket. He smiles, small and private, but wears it long enough for Hikaru to see.

When the train pulls into the station, Akira gently takes Hikaru by the elbow. He feels the minute anxious flexing in the triceps and the instinct to claim is overwhelming. He runs his thumb down the curve of the elbow when he feels the relaxation into guidance, a little positive reinforcement on a minor submission.

When they turn the corner toward the Touya family home, they can see Ogata’s Miata parked out front. They enter through the gate and Akira leads them around back, to the garden. Ashiwara threw open the sliding doors to the engawa and they can see through and into the kitchen, where he’s unpacking groceries and humming tunelessly. It just about reaches them, some barely recognizable pop song, cut as it is by the sound of running water and the intermittent clack of the bamboo deer scare.

“I’ll go help,” Hikaru says, but Akira catches him by the elbow again.

“Let’s sit a moment,” he says, turning his face to the bright spring sun. 

They sit on the lip of the balcony and kick off their sneakers. Hikaru is quiet, compliant, uncharacteristically still.

“Hot out,” he says, shrugging out of his jacket.

“Mm,” Akira says, leaning back on his hands.

He takes his hair down and runs his hands through it scatters the scent of sweat and burnt juniper. Hikaru inhales deep and slow as discretely as he can. Akira’s smell. So different from Akari, whose hair smells like overripe apple and freesia and the alcohol bite of hairspray. But Akira’s hair is nearly as long now, spilling down over his shoulders, just past his jutting collarbones, and glossier besides.

Hikaru watches the deer scare fill with water and topple down, smack, and return slow, and repeat, smack. Time stretches out in front of him the way it does when he’s playing, and he sees the field of possibilities laid bare.

He feels eyes on him, on his neck and the side of his face. It’s more than the glint of the mid-day sun off the pond, it’s a heated focus that he’s felt across a crowded room, a gaze he would know with his back turned.

His mind attaches to the churning water of the fountain, bubbling up and over to trickle down into the bamboo tube, up and up and smack. Akira’s eyes on the side of his neck, on his jaw, that cool and endlessly renewing intensity pours over him until he is the bamboo tube, up and up and he’s full now and ready to topple over. Then smack, he’s toppled over and everything is upside down.

And things look different with the world on its head.

And just like that, all of the spiraling thoughts are gone, slowly tapped out in turns by the sharp clack of the deer scare.

He turns to Akira, and Akira’s eyes are waiting.

“You ever think about girls? Like dating and stuff?”

Akira laughs like he does when Hikaru’s said something ridiculous.

“Hardly.”

Hikaru toes his socks off and drops them into his sneakers. Looks at his rival sideways and sly.

“Nerd.”

Akira sits up straight and looks down at his hands, at the smooth callouses on his fingers.

“I think about go.”

Hikaru grins, and Akira gives a wry smile in return.

“Super nerd.”

Hikaru kicks his legs out and waits a moment for the smack of the bamboo tube.

“I mean. Me neither though. Me too.”

“Fellow nerd,” Akira says with a bow of his head.

They watch the fountain together until the tube tips three times. Hikaru is delighted by the absurdity of them sprawled like cats on the balcony of the too orderly home, sunkissed and unshowered. The sight of their sneakers sitting skewed on the artfully spaced rocks moves him more deeply than the manicured trees. And Akira’s tousled hair and relaxed posture move him in a different way entirely.

“To be honest,” Akira says, quiet and husky. Almost a whisper. “I think about you.”

The raspy flick of Ogata’s lighter makes them both jump.

“Where does your mother keeps the rice vinegar?” he says, smoke streaming up past his glasses.

“I’ll get it,” Akira says, and disappears inside.

Ogata watches him disappear behind the shouji with a curious focus, touched on either side by familiarity and disdain. Fear and a distant affection at once. He blows twin streams of smoke from his nose like a dragon. Looks at Hikaru’s leaning, lounging form. Covetous, yearning for some unseen prize.

“I still want that game,” he says to Hikaru’s back.

Trickle, tilt, and smack. Hikaru hums and cups his chin.

“You can’t play a dead man,” he says blithely.

Ogata huffs a cloud of smoke.

“What a shame.”

Hikaru turns to him, smiling, cheeky. Sparkle of challenge in his big dark eyes.

Ogata Honinbou Judan is wearing ankle socks with little tennis balls printed on them and he has skinny calves and knobby knees. Hikaru feels a swell of power, like he could take Ogata out right here, right now, with his go or otherwise.

“Guess you’ll have to settle for me!”

As he says it, he doesn’t feel the least bit bitter. Either this is what progress feels like or he’s going totally insane.

Return, repeat, smack.

“You’re that eager for a beating?” Ogata says.

Hikaru turns his face up toward the sun and savors the heat on his cheeks.

“Something like that,” he says.

“Hey! It’s ready,” says Ashiwara’s head, poking out into the engawa.

Ogata flicks his cigarette into a section of combed sand. Hikaru waits a moment, picks it up, then follows them inside.

He finds the bathroom and flushes the cigarette, then washes his hands.

When he walks into the kitchen, he’s struck by the image of Akira in house slippers, pale ankles exposed, scooping big paddles of rice into little blue bowls. Pretty dark hair spilling over his broad shoulders and too straight posture and the soft energy that comes with being in one’s own home. Perfect, a perfect moment. He commits it to memory, in case things change forever for the worse. He’ll have this moment, this calm, a last souvenir of the peace before.

He sidles up to Akira and purposely presses the length of their arms together. Akira leans in and smiles. Hands him two of the bowls, gestures toward the table.

“Drinks!” Ashiwara says, drying his hands on the skirt of Akiko’s pink apron.

Ogata drops a six pack of Kirin on the table.

“It’s lunchtime, you lushes,” Hikaru says, grinning.

“Oh relax,” Akira says, bringing the remaining bowls and a stack of chopsticks.

Ashiwara sets down a plate of sliced katsu and a big bowl of curry.

“Thank you for the food,” Touya says.

“Yeah thanks!” Hikaru says. “This looks stupid good.”

“Let’s eat,” Ashiwara says.

Ogata opens four beers, one after the other, and passes them around.

“Cheers, you little bastards,” he says, though he doesn’t wait before he takes a celebratory swig. “To your run at my titles.” He takes another swig.

“Ogata, rude!” Ashiwara says as he doles out pieces of cutlet.

Akira serves Hikaru two huge ladels of curry, then serves Ashiwara, then himself. He passes the bowl to Ogata.

“You’d make a good wife, Akira,” Ogata says as he serves himself.

“Great wife,” Hikaru mumbles around a mouthful of curry.

Akira scoffs, frowns at his bowl.

“But also, rude.”

“Hey! I cooked it, what about me!” Ashiwara says, fluffing the pink apron still tied around his waist.

“You’ll make a great house husband then,” Akira says. He takes a little sip of beer. “You cook better than Ichikawa by a wide margin.”

Ogata takes off his glasses and squints at Ashiwara.

“I knew it. I knew it was Harumi.”

“Not Ichikawa. Mayumi, from the movie theater,” Ashiwara says, thoroughly pleased with himself.

“Well, well,” Ogata says. He takes a gulp of beer. “Little Mayumi. What a fox. Makes Harumi look like a dog.”

“Incredibly rude,” Akira says.

“You know what Ichikawa told me last summer though?” Ashiwara says, waggling his eyebrows. “Cooking’s not the only thing I do better by a wide margin.”

Akira presses his knuckle to his lips, suppressing a laugh.

“Wow, guys,” Hikaru says, wincing at the imagery. “Save it for league play.”

Akira takes a thoughtful little bite of rice and gazes at his empty spoon.

“There’s an idea. We have two boards and plenty of room in the salon.”

“You need another hobby,” Ashiwara says. “Have a real off day. Live a little.”

“We played racquetball all morning,” Akira says softly, as close to a whine as he would dare.

“I’ll play,” Hikaru says, scooping the last of the curry into his bowl.

“Of course you will,” Ogata says. “If your golden boy says jump…”

Akira scoffs again.

“Keep drinking so you have a good excuse when I win,” Hikaru says, placing his spoon in the empty bowl. He takes a big sip of beer and sets it down hard. “And I’m my own golden boy. Come on, settle for me.”

Ogata frowns. There’s an angry pinch to his eyes and Hikaru knows he’s got the older pro cornered.

“Right now, then. I have to be out by five.” Ogata says, standing.

Hikaru looks at his rival for permission.

Akira is wearing a coy little smirk and he has a look in his eyes that Hikaru has never seen him wear so plainly before, though he knows the basic shape. He’s thought about that look a number of times, alone in his room with the covers drawn up. It’s fury and hunger and pride, a kind of unrestrained and indulgent look Akira usually only wears when he’s dealt a killing blow, a look he usually only shows to the top of his opponents’ bowed heads. His tongue darts over his full lower lip as he nods.

It’s all Hikaru needs to propel him into the salon after Ogata, to sit in front of the old kaya board that belongs to the meijin.

They nigiri in silence and play fast through the opening. By the fourth hand, the world around them has disappeared and all Hikaru can see is nineteen by nineteen lines and all he can hear is the babble of the fountain and the sound of the stones, trickle and smack.

He’s pleasantly tired and drenched in sun and his body is loose and relaxed and Akira thinks of him like he thinks of go, deep and constant, and doesn’t think about girls. Hikaru is content and as empty as the upturned tube and he sees as far as the squawking jay on the roof can see and it’s all so easy, like the wind in the spindly maple outside, flowing and easy.

At mid game there’s a heat beside him and they don’t touch, he doesn’t look back, but he knows. Solid, warm, appraising but approving. He feels the tightness of the bond like the string of a kite, not restrictive but grounding.

See me. See my go.

Ashiwara kneels down closer to Ogata and his eyes are wide, and they stay wide a long while.

The squawk of the jay and the water and tap, trickle, smack. Time is nothing, nothing until the late afternoon sun sneaks in through the open doors and streaks across Ogata’s glasses.

There’s a hush in the lull of the stone taps and even the jay pipes down. There’s a hand on Hikaru’s shoulder, and the sound of Ogata padding out between the shoji, through to the balcony. In the hush they can hear the rasp and flick of the lighter.

“Shindou. What a game,” Ashiwara says, breathless.

The hand on Hikaru’s shoulder squeezes. He touches the hand with his own.

“Call me in if you start to discuss it. I’m gonna go clean up,” Ashiwara says, and he quietly leaves.

They shift together, leaning over the board. Akira’s hand slides down to brace between Hikaru’s shoulder blades as he looks at the spread of the stones. His palm radiates heat into Hikaru’s skin.

“Shall we review?” Akira says, eyes on the board.

“What’s the point,” Ogata says. “I know what went wrong.”

“Don’t be a sore loser, Ogata Honinbou,” Akira says, metal in his voice. He slides his hand a little higher, fingers curling over the curve of Hikaru’s shoulder. Defensive of his rival, vicariously proud. “It’s unbecoming of a title holder.”

“Mind your hands, Akira,” Ogata says as he looms in the doorway. Smell of tar and tobacco smoke floats bitter before him. “You’re going to give people the wrong idea.”

Hikaru's eyes drift over the stones, clouds over a placid lake. Six moku. A victory that decisive over the reigning Honinbou, it means something to him, even in this casual match. Akira’s hand on his shoulder, warm and possessive, didn’t shrink at Ogata’s words. He’s finally made it to the place where they can stand side by side.

It makes him want to grab his rival by the shoulders and shout ‘I’m here!’ But he knows he doesn’t have to: Akira is one of the most keenly perceptive people Hikaru has ever met.

See me. See my go.

See the things we’ve been hiding from ourselves for years, tucked away for a time like now.

Then again, Hikaru can think of about five reasons why he shouldn’t rock the boat. They have a good thing already, better than most could hope for. If he lost it, well. He won’t let himself think of that now. They work together. They fight all the time. If things between Shindou and Touya get weirder than they already are, everyone will know.

But then, he realizes, everyone already knows.

He looks up for the first time since nigiri and meets Ogata’s eyes. “More like the right idea.”

Ogata scowls, disgust in the curl of his lip. He takes a final drag and flicks his cigarette out into the garden.

“Clean the game up, will you? I’ve got somewhere to be.”

A tense and foggy moment as Ogata walks past them and slips on his shoes in the genkan. Akira’s hand, lingering and warm. The sharp click of the door, then the rip of the engine and a tire whine as the Miata speeds away.

The bubble of the fountain, the squawk of the jay from a far-off rooftop. Clear early evening light and scent of wisteria on the breeze through the open doors.

Hikaru looks up at Akira and grins. Leans back into the hand at his shoulder.

“It’s a great idea. Best idea I ever had.”

“Do you think so?” Akira says, and he runs his thumb up the back of Hikaru’s neck. He tips his head down and the dark curtain of his hair sweeps along Hikaru’s cheek.

“Made some tea,” Ashiwara says from the doorway. They startle snd shift apart.

“Ogata left?”

Akira stands, straightens his polo.

“He had a prior engagement.”

“Always was a sore loser,” Ashiwara says brightly as he walks over to the goban. “He’ll get over it. You, though,” he says, shaking a kitchen towel at Hikaru. “You’re—”

“Crazy, I know.”

“Brilliant,” Akira says. “I’ll put the stones away. Go have tea.”

Hikaru follows Ashiwara into the kitchen and takes the offered cup.

“He’s never called me that before,” he says, voice distant and dreamy.

“He calls you that all the time,” Ashiwara says with a laugh. He pats Hikaru on the shoulder. “You should come to the study group once Ogata cools off.”

“Yeah,” Hikaru says. “Maybe. That would be nice.”

In the salon, Akira slowly collects Ogata’s white stones, picking them up one by one from where they sit on the board. When he’s done dropping them in the goke, he lightly runs his fingertips over Hikaru’s black formations, tracing their eccentric, vivid shapes. Alone on the board, black’s cuts and extensions resemble the thick, rough angled boughs of a plum tree. Akira imagines his own play unfolding in place of Ogata’s, and instead of a limestone vault it’s the plum’s pale blossoms, a call for an answer, two aspects of the same lovely organism.

Inevitable, this first bright blooming. He can already feel himself unfolding, relaxing into fullness.

“Shindou,” he calls as he heads toward the hallway. “Shall I walk you home?”

Hikaru peeks out from the kitchen and grins.

“Yeah, why not.”

Ashiwara hangs Touya Akiko’s pink apron on its hook once again and puts his shoes on in the genkan.

“See you later, Akira! Shindou! Don’t forget to close the door,” he calls after them.

“Goodbye.”

“Later!”

Akira leads Hikaru out through the engawa and slides the door shut behind them.

Alone together on the balcony, Hikaru can hear the jay again, the constant trickle of the water.

He grabs Akira’s hand and their fingers interlace. They know how to move next, because it’s reflex now to anticipate a response to one another’s moves. Akira hooks his arm around Hikaru’s waist and Hikaru’s hand sifts through Akira’s hair and grips and their lips meet already parted. Akira slips his knee between Hikaru’s legs, slips his clever tongue into Hikaru’s mouth, and they’re smiling, they can feel each other smiling. The warm press of their hands goes from needy to sweet, almost reverent caresses.

Hikaru grinds his hips up and the fabric that separates them is so thin that he can feel the full, hard length of Akira’s cock against his thigh. His own cock twitches against the sudden heat and he gasps and flinches like he’s been shocked.

They part wide-eyed and panting. Akira brings his knuckle to his glistening lips. He’s blushing coral pink and the raw need in his probing eyes is tinted with fear.

Hikaru cups his face and brings their foreheads together and sighs and smiles. Akira laughs softly, and they laugh together until their bodies settle down.

“Finally,” Hikaru breathes, drinking in the smell of Akira’s hair.

“It’s about time, isn’t it?”

“Put your shoes on,” he says. “Let’s go to my house.”

“Should I,” Akira says, then stops. He’s suddenly shy, and it fills Hikaru with an aching tenderness. “Should I bring a change of clothes? I mean I’m still wearing my gym clothes—”

“Bring anything you want,” Hikaru says. “You can stay over. You know. If you want.”

“I’d like that,” Akira says.

As he waits for Akira on the balcony, Hikaru watches the sun dip down between the arms of the maple. He has the sense of releasing, of falling into inevitability like water, like the descent of the sun, the cycling seasons. He sees Akira everywhere, in the dark shine of the wet stones and the the twilight-darkened emerald of bamboo leaves and, bittersweet, in the possessive curl of wisteria.

“I’m ready. Shall we go?”

They walk to the train in electric silence, biting their tongues to keep from grinning. Playing at discretion gives Hikaru butterflies, and his head is filled with ten different wicked scenes, all blessedly invisible to the drab commuters around them. It’s pure art, what plays before his mind’s eye when he steals hungry little glances at his rival’s easy grace.

He takes Akira’s bag for him when they reach the turnstile, and lets his rival lead, lays back so he can formulate his strategy.

“We’re five stops from mine.”

“Oh, I should have brought something. A housewarming gift or—”

“You are the housewarming gift,” Hikaru whispers. Akira gives him the look, and Hikaru shoves his hands in his pocket to keep them from starting something they definitely can’t finish on a moving train.

It’s the peak of the evening rush and the train is packed tight. He’s reviewing all his recent losing games trying to keep his body calm. The train lurches and he’s suddenly aware that Akira is taking no such pains, he can feel the press of hardness against his thigh.

“Pardon me,” Akira says softly in his ear.

The sweep of Akira’s hair against his neck and the air on the shell of his ear gives Hikaru goosebumps. Suddenly that arch propriety, thatuptight, genteel manner that Hikaru found strange and a little bit lame is doing wild things to his brain and his body.

Akira’s palm comes to rest in the small of his back and stays there for three stops. When the doors open he gently drives Hikaru out with the soft, paternalistic press of his elegant hand.

Hikaru wants the initiative back, he wants to lead and not to follow, and so when the short walk from the train finds them at the door of his new apartment, he opens it for Akira and gestures him in.

Once the door clicks shut, Hikaru drops the bag on the floor and grabs his rival around the waist and crushes their bodies together. His hand slips through the long dark hair to grip the back of Akira’s neck, tongue probing into Akira’s wet, yielding mouth.

They kick off their shoes with their hands at each other’s hips and they steal down the hall and into Hikaru’s room.

Hikaru pushes Akira up against the wall and drinks him in with long, deep kisses. Akira starts to come undone against him, grinding up and making pained, impatient little noises into Hikaru’s open mouth. Hikaru’s hands inch up the pastel polo and grip at the soft skin and the hard planes underneath, thumb grazing the strip of hair that disappears behind the button of the pleated shorts.

“Shindou,” Akira says, choked, desperate, furious with need.

This new color to the long familiar voice strips Hikaru of his patience, and he drops to his knees. Akira gasps at the sudden absence and gazes down at him with glazed affection.

“God—can I?” Hikaru says, and Akira moans.

The sound shocks the both of them to stillness, and in the quiet the gravity of what’s about to happen settles over them.

Akira’s knuckle is pressed hard to his lips, eyes wide, shoulders heaving with heavy breaths. Hikaru’s sparkling dark eyes and full, kiss-plump mouth are smiling up at him, fists balled in his lap as he sits, in seiza, at Akira’s feet.

Akira collects himself, lets out a trembling sigh.

“You may.”

Hikaru grins, face a perfect mask of taut mischief. Akira’s imagined his rival’s lust-fogged face before, but the reality is so much heavier—wicked smile, flash of teeth between the moist lips and those eyes with a sun’s gravity sucking him in.

Hikaru’s palms are on his thighs and his shorts are sliding down and he hisses as his skin makes contact with the chilly air in the room. His eyes are locked on Hikaru’s, until a wet, searing heat envelops him and Hikaru’s eyes flutter shut. The throaty and appreciative moan that buzzes around the head of his dick, sunk deep in Hikaru’s mouth, does something wicked to Akira’s ragged state of mind.

“Sh-shindou,” he says cupping Hikaru’s head. “If you need me to stop, make sure you—”

But Hikaru doesn’t have stopping anywhere in his mind. He shakes his head no and makes a muffled noise of protest, and the motion makes his tongue drag over the head of Akira’s cock. Akira loses control, like he always loses control with Hikaru. Hikaru takes him apart, breaks him down until he’s raw, concentrated, pure.

That familiar slippery excitement runs down Akira’s spine as he snaps his hips forward, driven by the intensity and the glint of challenge in his rival’s deep, dark eyes.

He grips fistfulls of Hikaru’s bicolored hair, pumps hard into the sucking heat of his mouth. Hikaru grips his ass and pushes him further back with each thrust, greedy and drooling and keening low and pleading, eyes on Akira’s all the while.

Akira can feel his own hair whipping across his cheeks as he pumps hard into Hikaru’s mouth. Hikaru slips a hand between his legs to cup him softly, one finger pressed into the tender, pulsing space behind his balls. Soon, too soon, its too hot, Hikaru is too hot and it’s over, he grits his teeth and yanks on Hikaru’s surprisingly soft hair. He empties himself with a full body tremble into the back of his rival’s throat.

“Hi-hika…ru.”

More than a rival, now.

Hikaru sits back on his heels and tips his head back and swallows, and the obscene bob of his adam’s apple and his unfocused eyes and the glaze at the corner of his mouth and the way he licks those pouty lips, two full swipes top and bottom all strike Akira like a blow to the chest.

“Shindou,” he says, letting the color of his voice carry the meaning through that versatile word.

“God, Touya,” Hikaru says, looking up at Akira’s flushed face and parted lips. His hair’s a mess, matted back with sweat. Hikaru can seehis forehead and the shape of the hairline beneath, and this is new information, just as intimate as the shape and color of Akira’s softening cock. Exposed, eyes unfocused in the afterglow, Akira is achingly beautiful.

“Fuck,” he says, catching the last dripping remnants of Akira’s orgasm from the weeping slit with a swift flick of his tongue. “Fuck, that’s good.”

“Fuck,” Akira echoes, wincing at the shock of sensation to his overstimulated skin.

“Hey, language!”

Akira drops to his knees and kisses Hikaru deep, tasting himself as they nip at each other’s lips. Hikaru tangles his right hand in Akira’s hair and palms himself through his pants with the other. But Akira’s hands are on him, pulling him up by the waist and backing him onto the bed.

Akira pushes Hikaru down onto the bed and steps back and out of his shorts. He pulls his polo over his head and stands exposed, drained of his shyness. Hikaru leans back on his hands, fully clothed, legs splayed over the edge of the bed.

“Seems I’m ahead of you,” Akira says, hungry eyes on the bulge in Hikaru’s track pants. He strokes himself idly, still half-hard.

“Bet I can catch up though.”

Akira stands tall and relaxed, all angled planes and slim but hard lines, pale skin and dark hair like a frame around the piercing eyes. Hikaru takes in the sight of him bare and knows in that moment that this is it, this is what he wants and nothing else could even come close. He feels violently possessive, proud, so satisfied at this final victory.

“Take your shirt off,” Akira says.

Hikaru is a mix of worked up and contrary and totally pliant under Akira’s gentle but clear command. He grins.

“What’s the magic word?” he says.

“Please,” Akira replies, breathless but polite as ever, as he strokes himself to hardness again.

He takes off his shirt, places it down with the finality of a stone.

“Lovely,” Akira says to himself. “Let me help you.”

He kneels in front of Hikaru and takes off one sock, then the other. He wants to kiss the flat plane of the stomach and palm the well built chest, but more than that he wants to take in more. He cups Hikaru’s calf, fingers trailing over the buttons that run down the side of the nylon fabric. Then he slides his fingers up the hem of the pants and pulls. There’s a satisfying cascade of pops as the pants fall away to reveal one toned leg and bright orange boxer briefs with yellow smiley faces on them. He pulls the remnants of the pants down the other leg and sets them aside.

“May I?” Akira says, hands sliding up Hikaru’s thighs.

Hikaru licks his lips.

“Yeah. Yeah you may.”

Akira tucks his fingers into the waistband of the ridiculous orange and yellow briefs and delicately lifts them off.

“Wait,” Hikaru says, leaning over to grab a bottle from the nearby night stand. He hands it to Akira and grins, chin up.

“You…are you sure? That’s what you want?”

“Do I seem unsure?”

Akira takes in the easy posture, the twitching erection, the sunny smile. The well-muscled limbs, the healthy build of the chest, the small brown nipples. An outie belly button. So many precious details. He’s overwhelmed, overcome—sure he’s in love.

“Do you have any,” Akira says, blushing, “—any condoms?”

“No,” Hikaru says, looking off to the side. “I mean, I don’t care. You’re the first, so.”

He’s the first. He feels an ache in his chest, deep but paradoxically pleasant, as if too much joy is trying to burst through. Not Sai, not Waya, no girl next door, no other has laid claim to what he feels is his by right—the privilege to have Hikaru like this, to see and know the body as intimately as he does the eclectic go.

It’s a first time for both of them. Akira knows what to do more or less. He was a precocious child and learned quickly how to maximize the return on any endeavor, including browsing the internet for something to contextualize his eccentric longings. But theory and practice are two different things.

He hesitates, frozen with the bottle in his hands.

“You scared? It’s okay,” Hikaru says, voice gentle. “We can wait.”

And scared is the magic word for Akira, because there isn’t anything yet that he’s given up to fear. And why should it be this, when he wants it so deeply his bones ache.

“Lay back,” he says as he follows Hikaru up onto the bed.

“You sure?” Hikaru says.

“Do I seem unsure?” Akira says, kneeling between Hikaru’s legs.

Hikaru takes a pointed look at Akira’s twitching erection and grins.

“It’s my secret that I’m actually fond of your big mouth,” Akira says, spreading the lube onto his fingers. “Do please stay vocal so I know you’re okay.”

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Hikaru says, and pulls Akira down by the hair and into an open-mouth kiss.

Akira cups Hikaru’s balls, slides his finger down toward the puckering entrance beneath. He grabs the base of Hikaru’s cock and pumps languidly, pushing slowly at Hikaru’s asshole with the middle finger of his other hand. He slides past the tight ring of muscle to the first knuckle. He twists it slowly as he sinks in farther, to the second knuckle, then down to the base.

He searches Hikaru’s face for signs of discomfort, but finds only a dazed impatience.

“I’m not gonna break, Touya.”

Akira removes his finger, then pushes back in with two. He scissors his fingers gently, twisting them side to side, as he takes Hikaru’s cock in his mouth. He pumps slow, short strokes at the base with his loose fist and drags the flat plane of his tongue up the underside and around the weeping head. Hikaru gathers Akira’s hair up in a loose ponytail and holds it with both hands to still him.

“Slow down. I want you inside.”

Akira looks up into Hikaru’s sparkling eyes and sees the surety of an oak, a mountain range, the rock solidity of a seaside palisade, and he feels himself crashing over in waves, drawn by the pull of the moon. He slowly removes his fingers, rocks back and grabs the bottle.

“Now then?”

“Right now.”

Their eyes meet and stay locked through the slow crawl, soft press, wet slide. Hikaru’s ash gray eyes, squinting at the pinch of pain, locked on Akira’s, wide open in a paraphrase of shock at the ecstasy of sinking down together, becoming one.

Hikaru winds his arms around Akira’s neck and draws him close, pulls him down until they’re resting cheek-to-cheek. They pant quietly as they adjust to the sensation, the push-pull motion of their breathing like a lullaby. Hikaru runs his fingers through Akira’s hair, gathering it up in his hands again.

He takes a shuddering breath in and angles his hips so that the very last centimeter of distance closes.

“My god,” Akira whispers, straining to withhold himself.

Hikaru presses a kiss to the corner of his rival’s mouth and quietly says,

“Fuck me, Akira.”

Akira gasps.

“That’s what you want?” he says, drawing almost all the way out. “What’s the magic word?”

Hikaru growls and lifts his hips to try and close the distance again. Akira grips him firmly around the waist and holds him down on the bed. Keeps just the very tip of his cock sunk past the tight ring of Hikaru’s asshole. He quirks his brow, cocks his head.

“God, please,” Hikaru says, fisting the sheets. “Please fuck me, Akira. Please.”

“Very well,” Akira whispers, and drives forward with the full weight of his body.

Hikaru hisses through his clenched teeth, body trembling with a sense of fullness. Akira pushes Hikaru’s knees up toward his chest and watches his rival’s eyes go dark and slitted, then open in shock with each deep, slow thrust.

“More.”

It’s almost painfully tight, being inside Hikaru.

“More?”

Hikaru licks his lips.

“More, please.”

Akira gazes at the lust drunk face and knows he couldn’t deny Hikaru anything, even if he wanted to.

“As you like.”

He snaps his hips back and then slams forward, driven by the pleading moans. He snakes his hand between them to grip Hikaru’s cock, pumping him to match each thrust.

“I’m—fuck, you’re gonna make me—” Hikaru says, and Akira swallows the rest of the sentiment in a rough kiss.

“Come, Hikaru,” he says, gently twisting his fisted hand around the head of Hikaru’s cock.

Hikaru’s mind goes white and shining as he rushes straining into Akira’s hand. He distantly registers the stuttering rhythm of Akira’s thrusts before a wave of heat crashes down on him, bowling them over. Akira pants against his collar bone, limbs twitching as he grinds forward, knees digging into the bed. A choked groan, a shiver that passes through the both of them, and they both go boneless and soft.

Akira rolls off to the side, and his hair fans around him like a halo. Hikaru can see his forehead, can see the wide, disbelieving eyes and the soft smile.

“Oh my god,” Hikaru says. “We just fucked.”

“Shindou, language,” Akira chides gently.

“We need a swear jar,” Hikaru says.

“We need a shower,” Akira replies breathlessly.

Hikaru inches his fingers over until they settle into Akira’s open palm. The idea of ‘we,’ of ‘us,’ of ‘ours’ fills him with a giddy, bubbling happiness.

The sweat and slick of their bodies cools in the early evening air that flows in through the open window, and goosebumps prickle Hikaru’s skin.

He glances to the side, where Akira’s eyes are waiting.

“Let’s get clean. May I borrow a t-shirt?” Akira says.

“My house is your house,” Hikaru says.

He leads Akira to the bathroom and turns the shower on. They take turns pushing one another up against the glass wall, trading wet, slow kisses, until Hikaru has the idea to wash Akira’s hair. It’s a moment of tenderness and service that should make him embarrassed, but all he feels is wonder. Any fear about what it’ll mean if they keep doing this—if the Kiin finds out, if Waya finds out, if his mom finds out—is slowly squashed by the gravity of Akira’s relaxed face tipped up toward the water, slim neck exposed, eyes closed in exstasy as Hikaru’s fingers slide against his scalp. All his misgivings disappear down the drain with the fragrant suds.

“This is, like, a thing now, right?” he says as they step out. “You and me?”

Akira gives him a withering look, like he’s just said the dumbest thing possible.

“When, exactly, has it been anyone or anything else?”

Hikaru watches Akira towel off his hair, lithe body still dripping onto the mat, eyes crinkled with affection.

“Your goban is in the other room, right? I’d like to review that game.”

“Make yourself at home.”

When he sees Akira in a borrowed yellow t-shirt and shorts sitting in a relaxed seiza in the living room, damp hair hanging over his shoulders, he shivers at the strange sense of deja-vu. This is somehow achingly familiar.

He imagines Akira going home tomorrow, leaving an empty space behind, and something grips him in the guts.

“You should move in.”

It spills out in one breath, surprising them both.

“You know. If you want.”

Akira’s lips quirk up at the corners.

“I’ll think about it. Now,” he says, and gestures to the empty cushion.

Hikaru takes his place across the board and smiles.

 

***

 

Hikaru jogs down the street toward the train station, garment bag slung over his shoulder.

“Shindou!” Ashiwara calls. “Morning!”

“Morning,” Hikaru says as he pauses to catch his breath.

“Akira ready?”

“You know him,” Hikaru says. “He’s been waiting for this one for a while.”

Ashiwara leads them down the platform, suitcase rolling behind him.

“Is he eating?” Ashiwara says.

“Like a horse,” Hikaru beams. “Those cooking lessons are really paying off.”

Ashiwara looks pleased.

“Did you see the spread on the match? Three to one for Akira’s win. Kuwabara’s a mean bookie,” Hikaru says. “I think the vig is twenty bucks.”

“My money’s on Ogata,” Ashiwara says as they board the train. “Only cause he's the favorite. And he’ll see the slips. I bet he’ll check them, actually, just in case. Knowing him, that’s definitely what he’ll do. If he knows I bet against him, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Hikaru chuckles. He’s grown very fond of Ashiwara’s motor mouth.

“Hope you got money to burn then,” Hikaru says, laughing.

They stow their luggage and settle into their seats.

“But Ogata’s extra mean at title matches. You know that.”

“Yeah, but Akira’s, well. He’s definitely prepared. I’ve been drilling him every night.”

“Oh, my,” Ashiwara says, faux-scandalized. “Bet it’s good prep for you too, going into Meijin finals.”

“Mhmm,” Hikaru says.

He watches the cityscape give way to landscape in the window of the bullet train north to Kyoto. He slides his hand into his pocket and fidgets with the little wood box inside.

Without even trying, he can think of five reasons why he shouldn’t do it. They’re only twenty-two. His mom is still warming up to the idea of them living together, even though she’s known for a year. It’s not even legal, though Hikaru never much cared about that. If the Kiin found out, there’d probably be a mountain of paperwork to do. The former Meijin has dropped some bizarre hints that he expects an honest to god traditional ceremony, though how that would play out Hikaru hasn’t the faintest.

“Eh. Why not,” Hikaru says as he watches the countryside give way to forest streaked in orange and gold.

“Why not what?” Ashiwara says.

“You think I’d look good in kimono? Like, the whole deal?” Hikaru says.

Ashiwara chuckles. He’s grown quite fond of Hikaru’s non-sequiturs.

“Course you would, Shindou.”

He gazes out the window and thinks about life, its field of possibilities laid out before him. Stone by stone, they’re building, filling every void with life-making shapes.

“After his birthday, then.”

Ashiwara smiles.

“I’ll plan the bachelor party. Parties? We should have two, one for each of you.”

Hikaru laughs.

“One’s enough.”

He realizes with a deep sense of ease that none would be enough. It’s already enough, the lively little space that waits for him back home, and the intense and temperamental and beautiful and persnickety and brilliant and sensitive soul that occupies it, that occupies Hikaru.

Still, he thinks as he turns the ring box over in his pocket.

Why not.

**Author's Note:**

> Write an explicit sex scene, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.


End file.
